I began a blog post about these extraordinary birds in 2020 as COVID raged around the world and shut down my bird travel and much of my local birding as well. Somehow with the depression that accompanied that lingering COVID period, I never got around to adding any details. We are now on the brink of a new year – 2024 – so almost 4 years have passed. When I started a new blog post about travels earlier this month to Mexico, I noticed the draft of this post and seeing these birds again brought good memories, so I am posting it now. Cindy and I have been extremely fortunate to so far have completely avoided COVID ourselves and while we never made up the trip to Cuba that was the first we lost due to COVID cancelations, we did make it to Tanzania and will be leaving for Chile and Argentina in February making up for those trips lost.
These 10 birds were seen in Washington State, Montana, and Massachusetts in 80 days. Doubt that I have ever had or ever will again have such a collection of ABA rarities in such a period again
Glaucous Gull – February 17, 2020
Siberian Accentor – February 10, 2020
Ivory Gull – February 3, 2010
Gyrfalcon – January 28, 2020
Barnacle Goose – January 20, 2020
Dovekie – January 21, 2020
Emperor Goose – December 19, 2019
Ross’s Gull – December 1, 2019
Lesser Black Backed Gull – December 6, 2019
Mountain Plover – November 30, 2019
blairbirding 
The photo of that beautiful Rossâs Gull makes me want to cry! AM
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The Emporer Goose has a terribly sad backstory, also. Great shots Blair. The Ross’s Gull, though sad as Ann Marie pointed out, was completely educational for me.
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